News flash:  there is no acceptable substitute for cheese.  Soy cheese is RANK (and often packed with casein, the very milk protein that triggers my allergy).  Texture, flavor, look…wrong, wrong, wrong.

Instead of trying to replicate the cheesy goodness of cheese, I’ve taken to acceptable substitutes such as nutritional yeast (not as bad as it sounds!) and crafty recipes I’ve adapted from the sly vegans who have made dairy-free cooking into an art form.  Highly recommended:  Esme’s Sauce, which nobody can believe doesn’t have dairy in it.

Still, it gets me thinking:  is there ever an excuse to directly imitate a competitor?

There are two schools of thought on this:

• Imitation is a form of flattery!  Why not rip off Crocs, or Twitter, or Coca-Cola if you can do it for cheap and while turning an awesome profit?  Besides, there are no new ideas.  Right?
• Imitation is copyright violation and a gross ethical misappropriation of intellectual property.  If you can’t come up with a unique idea, stay home and let the rest of us go about our business.

As a writer (who can vouch for the there-are-no-new-ideas thing), I have to say that I come out somewhere in the middle.  It’s always better to come up with the next great idea than to hitch your star on someone else’s unique concept.  However, imitation can be accomplished with subtlety and class.  Do you covet the slick advertising of a Method or the down-home appeal of Jones Soda?  You, too, can take on that unique style…but with your own flair.  The ideal imitation dips broadly into many wells, paying homage where homage is due and dressing up that flattery with some real substance.

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